BASICS
Name: Steven Michael Keene ("Keen")
Age: 26

DESCRIPTION
" Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another."
-- Oscar Wilde
The basics: a white male of mixed German/Irish descent in his early 20s. He is approximately 6 feet tall, 250 pounds and has a stocky build. He has very closely cut brown hair, almost to the point of having a shaved head. His eyes are slate grey, with silver thin-rimmed eyeglasses in front of them. He is clean-shaven with a clear complection, and has the kind of smile only someone accustomed to a very good health care plan can have. He is not unpleasant to look at, nor does he stand out as being particularly attractive.
Beyond these basic details, there is something about this man that sets him apart from others. Beyond his good grooming and impeccable dental health, he has an ineffable quality -- the way he carries himself, the way he speaks -- that radiates self-mastery. He is the alpha male of alpha males, dominant by some divine spark rather than any apparent conscious desire on his part. People like this don't seek power; power seeks them out.
He is the consummate professional, dressed to impress. A well-tailored suit compliments his body contours as well as mere fabric can. The suit-coat is basic black, as are his slacks: his shirt is white, but his tie is grey -- specifically, it has an intricate design on it that can be determined to be some kind of circuit. A small Masonic pin is on his right lapel, with a blank white pin attached neatly to his breast pocket. A brown leather belt with a gold buckle wraps around his waist, his black leather loafers seemingly always clean and polished.

BACKGROUND
Origins
Steven M. Keene was born in unremarkable circumstances in suburban Cleveland, not having any particular abnormalities nor under any odd stars. He and a couple thousand other infants were born in the greater Cleveland area on that day, entering the massive bureaucratic system that is modern American life. Like many families of the age, both of his parents were working professionals: his father was a medical technician for one of the many octopus-like branches of the Cleveland Clinic, while his mother was a cubicle drone for Progressive Insurance. He was indoctrinated into the faceless corporate culture before he could walk, the segmented, regimented life of cube drones and proles suffusing his entire existence.

The slow, crushing death of Dilbert comic strips and "Office Space" was not Steven's destiny. He knew that intuitively after a few years of elementary school. He didn't want to sit still. He didn't want to do stupid busywork when he could be out ... doing anything else, anything but being regimented like he was. Sitting at a desk in a neat row for eight hours a day (save for a break for lunch) drove him crazy. So, naturally, his parents turned him over to their doctors to be medicated into an obedient drone.
Thus begins Steven's sordid relationship with pharmacology as mood management tool. Initially, he resisted being drugged, but his teachers were as complicit in the pharamacutical method of pupil discipline as his parents. Indeed, his teachers told his parents that only after a few days of being on Ritalin his performance had significantly increased. Because of this, he earned praise, and the praise became associated with drugs. Like Pavlov's dogs, Steven was conditioned to have a positive cognitive link between drugs and feeling good. After all, they told him, he hadn't been really happy until he started taking the pills, but afterward -- why, he was a happy little kid.
Time passed, and Steven grew older. The complexity of puberty started to alter the way he felt. Suddenly, he was no longer happy -- his grades began to slip, and he became moody and irritable. Most people would figure this to be normal, but not Steven's parents: off to the doctor again, this time for anti-depressants. Sure, they shaved some IQ points off, but Steven didn't miss them. He was happy again, and that made everyone happy. His grades went back up, he felt better about himself and others, and that coked-up glassy stare went away after he started adjusting to the new body chemistry. By the time he got into high school, you'd never know he was taking more medications than most old men in nursing homes.
Despite his brain being hammered with complex chemicals during formative periods, Steven still was able to find his "special talent" in life. His particular niche was being able to express himself well using the written word. Whatever was going through his happy little brain could be articulately put down on paper, which led him to start writing for his various school newspapers. Steven's teachers saw a lot of potential in his composition ability, so encouraged him to write: while his poetry was marginal at best, he could compose highly imaginative short stories that won a few minor awards and earned his school district some prestige.
Again, it was the drugs that helped Steven become "better" and accepted by others in his mind. He thought they gave him his ability to capture the feelings of others in words so well. Steven could justify this assumption fairly well: the reason he had such insight was because of the wide variety of mood swings he had experienced through his life. As one would expect, there had been occasions when the drugs would run out, or when the drugs would be jacked up too high or the wrong interactions would happen. As a result, he knew about all kinds of gradiations in the human experience. Joy, though -- as defined as that warm, insensate period when the drugs would first kick in -- that was his favorite thing to describe. The joy of eating sandwiches. The joy of standing in line. When he had the right combination of drugs in him, he could even express the sublime pleasure of staring at a blank wall.
A Direction In Life
Steven could have been happy doing anything by that point in his life from the combination of drugs he was kept on, but a chance encounter while he was in high school changed the entire course of his life. A local public relations flak did a presentation about the discipline for his school newspaper during his sophomore year, doing a relatively remedial talk about what PR firms did for companies. While most everyone else in his peer group found PR work to be loathesome, Steven liked what he saw. Unlike journalism, which paid badly and was held in low esteem by people in power, PR people seemed to be positive all the time, just like he liked to be. Everything that came out of their mouths or from their fax machines was "feel good" stuff, and he liked to feel good. He liked being happy. He liked convincing other people to be happy. Happiness is good. Right?
Immediately, he began working on building up his portfolio so he could be taken seriously by strong Communication programs at various colleges; cranking out articles for the school newspaper, writing press releases for the football team, networking with people. With every success, he became more confident in his abilities. Of course, the drugs helped. Specifically, the new and better drugs he started taking to ease his nerves, though they were of the under-the-counter persuasion. What harm could some booze and marijuana do, after all? They were just more drugs to take, more ways of making him more confident, less stressed, more *happy*. Better.
Because of all of his hard work, Steven found his way into a good Communication program: Michigan State, a Big Ten school, a party school. Of course, by that point in his life he had taken a wide range of drugs (legal and not), and so he didn't find anything he encountered there to be a big deal. Hell, they started coming to him for stuff, and he gladly obliged: he was covered under his mother's health insurance, which was truly mighty. A few more pills a month, some deals worked out on the side with doctors ... it was a nice tax-free income channel, which allowed him to live as he was accustomed to.
His first two years of college helped to mold and refine his talents far more than he could have imagined back in high school. Between working on the newspaper, writing press releases for various campus groups and his classes, he transformed from a talented amateur to an up-and-coming professional. His employers and peers marveled at his seemingly boundless positivity and desire to succeed, hardly suspecting the vast amount of chemical enhancement that allowed him to function at that level day in and day out. And his needs for those chemicals grew greater and greater as his body adapted to new states of "normal", requiring stronger drugs, more drugs.
Steven's ravenous need for drugs -- the drugs that let him be as good as he was, in his mind -- led him to become more ruthless in his pursuit of them. He used all of the knowledge he developed from his studies of persuasion and his practical insight into human nature to become a masterful liar. Steven was so drugged up most of the time that most of the natural signs of body stress were simply absent to begin with: his capacity to feel guilt had been nearly chemically bombed out of his brain from years and years of progressively higher dosages of various colorful pills. He conned different doctors to write him prescriptions, talked foreign exchange students into thinking they were depressed so they could get anti-depressants from their doctors (then switched the pills out with sugar pills he'd get from the medical school); you name a workable scam, he took part in it so he could get more and more drugs to sell and take.
Mentorship
During the beginning of his junior year of college, another life-altering event came to pass in Steven's life of drugs, lies and back-door deals: he met Dr. Maximillian Ravenhurst, who taught his last general education requirement: the History of Western Civilization from the Dark Ages to the Revolutions of the 1700s. It was one of those classes most people are just happy to get a C in, but for whatever reason Steven actually took some interest in it. After a few weeks of hanging around after class and talking to Dr. Ravenhurst about class material, Steven became something of an assistant to the wizened old coot. They began having lunch together, and ultimately was introduced to some of his friends. At first, Steven was amazed that all of the people who hung around with Dr. Ravenhurst had anything to talk about at all: they had a broad range of ages and nationalities, but all shared a love of Western thought.
Dr. Ravenhurst (no one ever called him anything else to Steven's knowledge) was also a Freemason, and started encouraging Steven to consider joining the local lodge during the last quarter of Steven's junior year. At first, he was wary, but Dr. Ravenhurst had as much of a way with words as he did. Ultimately, he ended up joining, being tutored in the rituals and procedures of the "society of secrets" by the Doctor himself. He was introduced to an even wider range of people through the Masons, developing surprising connections to people he never would have suspected would want to associate with each other.
Through a series of one-day classes during the summer, as well as during his senior year, Steven rose to the rank of a Master Mason, earning his apron and Bible with widespread approval of the rest of the lodge. Again, his engaging demeanor, his way with words and his unfailing positive attitude encouraged the diverse group of lodge members to accept him as one of their own. He felt a real sense of connected-ness to the Masons, and the connections he garnered by being a member helped him find side projects to enrich his portfolio while he finished up his Bachelor's degree.
Dr. Ravenhurst continued to involve himself in Steven's life, both through the Freemasons and in his capacity as a teacher. Even though Steven no longer had to take any classes in the History department, he found himself hanging around there in his spare time listening to him talk about various historical incidents. At first, they were simply obscure situations passed over in most traditional courses, but then the subject matter began to drift to things he'd never heard of. The White Tower in Langosch. Mistridge. The Golo studies of the /Kitab al Alcir/. And ... in the background of it all, a shadowy organization called the "Craftmasons".
Steven was walked down the long and winding road of the world's shadow history, learning about a tapestry of events that underlied human history but was intentionally surpressed in favor of the sanitized history most people considered to be true. Slowly, he came to understand the true nature of Dr. Ravenhurst's research and the reality that underlied it: he was an old Hermetic master magus, associated with House Ex Miscellanea. Once, his group of mages had been a strong and mighty House onto themselves -- Verditius -- but passed into obscurity with the rising of the modern age. He had been a maker of potions and Talismans, but with the rise of "the great spirit storm" had been forced to choose between his home and his laboratory. In the end, he chose to live out what remained of his life on Earth, teaching history to the young, teaching the real history to the promising.
He learned of the Ascension War, of the nature of reality. Steven was shown magic and wonders, and through his chemical haze accepted it as truth. Initially, Dr. Ravenhurst thought his Avatar had been fitfully Awake for some years and simply needed a good shove to take Steven to the next level. If he so easily accepted magic, surely he had the potential to become one of the great hopes of the Hermetic Houses! But, alas, Ravenhurst ultimately learned the pathetic truth: Steven had been so wacked out on happy pills and other chemical concoctions for so long that he could deal with almost anything. Attempts to counsel Steven off this path were, of course, abysmal failures, but Dr. Ravenhurst persisted where others would have given up, watching over the young man despite his extensive addictions.
Meanwhile, Steven continued to do well in school. His teachers, seeing his wonderful writing ability and insight into the human condition, encouraged him to stick around for a Master's degree. Steven, not minding another two years of cheap drugs and easy living, took them up on their offer and became one of the departmental minions. His "eccentric sense of humor" in grading papers (as he would do them as coked up as physically possible so he could tolerate the awfulness of the majority of them), as the Dean called it, raised a few eyebrows, but the balance of Steven's work in his chosen field continued to set him apart from others. He could craft amazing press releases jam-packed with so much non-content that it would look exactly like legitimate information, and could sell a line of baloney to any reporter to asked him a question. He was unshakable, so morally lobotomized from years of drug abuse and deception that he could make bold-face lies ring as true as Gospel.
Awakening
Halfway through the Master's program, just as Dr. Ravenhurst was about to give up on the idea of Steven ever becoming anything more than a particularly cheerful spear-carrier for a Flambeau, Steven Awakened. He told Ravenhurst that he had suddenly had a moment of clarity by meditating on the nature of deception after finishing a particularly well-written press release, which Ravenhurst accepted (either out of elation that Steven even achieved it, or by simply not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth). The truth was much less traditional -- hell, the truth was obscene.
Something had possessed Steven, one night, to see if he could get a high off of autoerotic asphyxiation. To this day, Steven doesn't remember exactly when, or why he decided to try it out: he decided to *do* it one evening just to see what would happen. While he was setting up a self-invented mechanism to allow him to control his air intake, "Samson versus the Vampire Women" came on over the campus movie channel. This particular Mexican wrestling/horror classic had been immortalized when it had been spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but for whatever sadistic reason, the programmers of the campus movie channel were running it in its original, uncut form late one evening.
After setting up his equipment, Steven began choking himself while choking his chicken, starting to hallucinate after a few moments of suffocation -- the drugs, combined with the imminent threat of death his body percieved, caused a series of gnostic experiences that culminated in a climax on several different levels: the expected happy ending and the stirring of his Avatar to wakefulness. However, as most ecstatic experiences end up, things did not go as planned. Normally, his Avatar would have manifested as the Man of Many Masks, the Trickster, the Fool -- however, Steven's brain was by then a chemical toilet, he had suddenly shut off air flow to it, and simultaneously had a multiple orgasm: so he imprinted on something else. In this case, Steven perceived "man of many masks" as "masked man" as Samson, the Mexican wrestler he saw step out of the television screen and rip the rag off his throat before he ended up killing himself.
(Put yourself in the position of Steven's beleagured Avatar for a moment. Pattern essences tend to manifest the same way over the course of a mage's life as authority figures or other symbols of stability and control. With Steven's mindset, he could have seen Loki or any of the other trickster-gods of myth and legend he knew about. He had at least *some* Hermetic background beforehand. You'd think he'd end up with something more meaningful, more *important* than a greasy, muscular Mexican wearing a stretchy Spandex mask. But no -- no, SOMEBODY had to Awaken polishing the ol' helmet high on all kinds of complex drugs while choking himself to death. As a result, this sort of thing happens.)
After forcibly imposing its will on Steven for being a general fuck-up and pharmacutical sewer (vis-i-vis a method traditional to Samson, a savage beating), his Avatar took his drugs away, punched the remaining chemicals out of him, then went back into the television in time to finish the movie; leaving Steven in a pool of his own ichor, recovering from the mother of all hangovers as his body fully flushed out of chemicals. He stayed that way for three days, barely able to move while he was wracked by withdrawl symptoms. In the end, it took Dr. Ravenhurst actually coming over to Steven's place to check up on him that kept him from dying from dehydration and system shock.
Nursing him back to health with Life magics, Ravenhurst made one last plea for Steven to purify himself once and for all and dedicate his life to learning about his new magical abilities. Steven, however, would have none of it. While Dr. Ravenhurst could make the physiological dependency on chemicals go away, Steven's psychology needed the drugs to stay stable. The drugs *were* Steven's power in his mind, as they allowed him to think clearly, feel calm and secure, and let him rise to states of euphoria not available to most people. As soon as he was out from under Ravenhurst's care, he got back on the drugs and "back to normal".
Tutilage
With the world being as it is, though, Dr. Ravenhurst decided that he should at least make an attempt to teach him about the Arts. He started to teach Steven about Forces, as is common among Hermetics. To Steven's credit, he made a sincere effort to learn about the Sphere, seeming to attune best to the methodology of House Thig in that respect. He had a remarkably difficult time learning about Forces, more so than would be expected. Steven, as one would expect, became frustrated with his slow progress, and turned inward to try to figure out why he wasn't meeting with better results.
Again, Steven had to confront Samson. Samson, who continued to resent the circumstances of Steven's Awakening (it surely wasn't a proper way for a Hermetic to Awaken), told Steven outright the reason he wasn't learning Forces better was because he didn't deserve any breaks until he shaped up. "See how much your fancy-hat friends like you when you can't do their big booms well," he said. "I hope they kick your ass in magic fights all the time! I bet you hundred dollars they would probably beat you up a lot if they learned how much of a loser you are!"
No amount of cajoling or pleading would help. His Avatar was echoing the sentiments of his mentor (and perhaps even his subconscious) -- he needed to put down the drugs and deal with the ups and downs of life without their help. Steven refused to yield, just like a Hermetic: as a result, the basics of Forces dragged on and on until, finally, he passed the simple test Dr. Ravenhurst gave him after several attempts. Yielding the point to his Avatar for the moment, Steven decided to focus on something totally unrelated to Forces afterward: the study of Ars Mentis, which he decided to treat in a more Technocratic fashion. After all, he understood psychology and influence tactics, and it wouldn't be too hard to figure out how to integrate Hermetic magic theory into applying Ars Mentis through those mundane trappings.
Perhaps because Steven had backed off, or because his Avatar was incapable of applying similar difficulty to the Mind sphere, Steven had more success learning this type of magic. He integrated his experimentation through the end of his Master's program, becoming fairly handy with basic Mind tactics while finishing up his Master's thesis on the use of press releases in political communication. Regaining his footing, Steven moved on to studying Entropy after encountering a House Fortuna mage in the local Chantry who gave a short symposium on the Sphere.
His Avatar remained fairly silent during his study of Entropy, and Steven began to believe that maybe he and "Samson" would finally be able to get along after a rough start. A few induced conversations through the application of meditation, however, corrected that assumption on Steven's part. "Do anything else," said Samson. "I will let you do anything else, but I will not let you go and make the big booms without a fight! I know you want to because you want to fit in with your fancy-hat friends, and that's why I won't do it! Dumb gringo!"
This was indeed the case. After graduating with his Masters, Steven spent the summer studying Entropy at the chantry whilst working for Dr. Ravenhurst as a hourly assistant for rent money. As the fall began again, Steven tried to start more advanced studies of Forces but met with repeated failures and Scourging. After one particularly bad incident that almost blew off his right pinkie finger, Steven reluctantly yielded again to the tyranny of his angered Avatar and put the study of Forces aside.
By then, Steven had become fairly proficient with basic magical principles, having spent a good deal of time making up for "lost time". His apprenticeship had been "highly irregular" considering the circumstances of his Awakening, and because of the difficulties presented by "environmental conditions" some aspects of his magical upbringing had not been as good as it could have been. Yet, Steven was competent enough to face his Tribunal of Initiation and do fairly well, though when it came to applying Forces, his Avatar resisted him to the point where he had to overpower it through a singular act of will. This seemed to work in his favor by the judgment of the Tribunal, however, who had been concerned about rumors of "drug use". (How little they knew.)
Into The World
Having become a full member of the Order, Steven decided to focus on getting a steady job somewhere so he could fund additional studies. Fortunately, his professional and fraternal connections helped him find work in the soft job market he faced as an entry-level media relations associate for one of the large radio station conglomerates on the West Coast. Happy to go towards a warmer, brighter climate, he packed up his meager possessions and headed out to San Francisco. He quickly became affiliated with the local Masonic lodge and Hermetic chantry, becoming embroiled in the churning shadow politics of the large city.
Drug people tend to hang together. It's the nature of things. Through chance encounters at the local chantry, Steven befriended Hiro and "Kid Sinister", otherwise known as J.T. They had the drugs, Steven had a job that actually paid him reasonable money, so a symbiotic relationship formed. Once they got to know each other better (as well as you can know a bunch of drug-baked guys who bend reality), Steven started doing promotions for their raves, as well as their group of affiliated hangers-on and malcontents. It also fell into Steven's purview to try to keep Kid Sinister and Hiro from completely destroying themselves, since Steven's drugs of choice tended to allow him to function marginally well in society while theirs didn't.
Admittedly, some of the things Hiro and J.T. did were on the order of being severely fucked. The square pigs that played DOOM were bad enough, but then there were the "orgone" collectors and the summoning of spirits to "ride" people and the really fucking hard drugs. The *really* fucking hard drugs. At the same time, it was very easy to sell the rave to the MDMA-fried zombies who typically went to such things. It was simplicity itself, allowing him to score some scratch on the side to save up in case something bad happened. Which, of course, it did.
Steven was something of a marginal case to the Hermetic Order as it was: member of a weak House, not particularly proficient with Ars Essentiae, rumors of drug abuse (and worse) around his character -- and the whole matter of his seemingly Technocratic leanings with Ars Mentis and Ars Fati. Then, of course, he started associating with the openly insane Invisible College, which House Thig outright despised. But, hey, being young and stupid (and brain fried) means you make bad calls like that.
The situation degenerated faster than Steven had expected. Word had gotten back to him that some frontier justice may be coming to he and his drug-addict chums. Being one of the saner members of the group, he started making arrangements for passports, change-of-address forms and handling the "business" end of moving the cabal whilst Hiro talked to his pig and J.T. did God knows what with the orgone collector. He didn't even want to think about what some of the others were doing. Ultimately, Steven managed to pull off the mechanical end of moving the entire operation north into Canada, though it strained his resources and forced him to look for yet another job. Good thing drugs are easier to get in Canada.

PARADIGM
" You think you know everything, whitey."
Samson had a way of making himself known during Steven's deep meditations. He would just get comfortable, imagining sitting in the lotus position on a ledge beneath a waterfall -- the battering of the water against his shoulders would start to wash away his discordant thoughts, which was Samson's cue to appear and start annoying him.
" Sitting here, on this rock, you think you're so cool." The Mexican wrestler grabbed a fish out of the falling water and slapped it against his meaty palm before tossing it into Steven's lap. "All the crap in your body will pollute the water and make the fishies sick."
The fish thrashed on his lap for a moment, trying to flop back into the water. Finally, taking pity on the creature, Steven carefully lifted his hand and flipped the fish back into the falling water, opening his eyes to stare at his antagonist, his piece of the Godhead, the millstone around his neck that pulled him down even as it let him fly.
Steven's reply was appropriate to the context in which Samson seemingly wanted to be treated. "Man, all you do is player-hate. It's not *my* fault you aren't getting with the program. I've tried to explain myself to you, but noooo, you have to talk shit. You have to keep lashing out at me."
He pulled himself up from the rock, standing to face the silver-masked Mexican. "Your problem is that you don't accept your place in reality and you won't do anything to change it. Instead you have to drag me down to make yourself feel better."
Samson grunted dismissively and paced through the waterfall, the fluid shearing off of him with no ill effects on his speech or senses. "You are the bad man," he says. "Hopped up on goofballs and choking the chicken. Sir, you are a man of the revolting behavior and low morals, and I will beat goodness into you if it is the last thing that I do."
" Good, evil, who are you to talk?" Steven said. "God damned imaginary eidolon. Look, in the three-level pyramid of Hermetic thought, you barely make it into the realm of faith and emotion -- you'd probably be happier if I sat around and watched TV instead of trying to work my Will onto this world. You can pull that mask over your own eyes, but I won't be blinded any more by my mundane senses. I don't think you could even understand the realm of Reason, of symbolic thought and empirical study. It's just my damned luck that I have you to deal with in the noetic realm of Above, of Truth incarnate --"
Samson, by then, had gotten sick of pacing around and put himself into Steven's personal space, yelling at him in his usual method of broken communication. "You of uncouth be quiet ... Barbarian! I will not have not more of this crazy talk! It is just lies to excuse you lying and taking your drugs!"
Quite a few of these incidents in the past, however, had hardened Steven to his Avatar's intimidation attempts. "You are as painfully ignorant as the majority of the Sleepers," he said. "It's amazing that you are a fractured piece of the Universal Mind. I must have gotten an insane part."
Stepping back from his seething Avatar, Steven gestured broadly while dictating to the imaginary wrestler. "I endured my difficult initiation into the Hermetic order. I learned the watered-down rituals in Freemasonry, then some of the real goetia before you ... /came/ into my life." He sneers at that, the smug look on Samson's masked face enough to incite his frustration. "*I* earned my way into sacred knowledge. *I* earned my Name. I discovered the real nature of reality --"
" You are an idiot!" countered Samson. "A stupid man who cares only about what he wants!"
" -- the real nature of reality, as it was created from chaos by the Great Architect. Only the pursuit of power, of control over this world can bring us closer to our Maker's ideal and let us understand the true grandeur of the Great Work. Only through strength and Will can we master the realm of Forms and, ultimately, Ascend beyond them."
Samson gave yet another dismissive grunt, turning his back to look out through the waterfall. Steven continued his talk, reasserting his understanding of the universe over his trunculent Avatar.
" My understanding of the universe is grounded in Reason," he said. "My mind itself, my control over my mind, is the root of my strength. My Will is the root of this control and the heart of all magick. But Will is nothing without a Form, so I put my strength to work through different aspects of the human intellect. How I present myself to others, the way in which I use my voice, structure my words, all of these things act as a Form through which my Will can flow. Our understanding of human psychology has given us broad insights into how people think and why they act the way they do, but it takes a greater understanding of universal Truth to fully take advantage of what we know."
" But underlying psychology is the way in which we communicate Form -- language. Language is the foundation of all civilization and human experience. Without the ability to convey shared meaning, we have no capacity to advance ourselves beyond the most basic expressions of passion or animalistic needs. We would be little better than apes --"
" Or potheads," grumbled Samson.
" -- little better than apes, were it not for the ability of language to allow us to understand what it is to be human. Language helps to create Form and defines our reality. For instance, everyone knows that `water' is `wet'. We know this because we have associated the properties of a substance with an arbitrary sensory state and named them `water' and `wet' respectively. The way we interact with water is shaped because of these seemingly arbitrary decisions made long ago."
" The power of a magus is to use language to actively redefine reality rather than passively support or slowly nudge it towards a certain end. We can reshape the threads of the Tapestry by exerting our Will through the Form of language, reweaving how and what reality is by changing the way in which the magus perceives reality to be. That is the power of language, and why the language of the spirits -- Enochian -- is so powerful: to rewrite the spiritual Form is to strike at the root of what `waterness' or `rockness' is."
Samson sat down on the edge of the ledge, letting the water wash over his back. "Has any person said to you that you are incredibly arrogant?"
" Yes, regularly. Part of the job description."
Steven walked to the stone wall of the chamber, resting his hand against it, before turning back to look at his Avatar. "Beyond that, there are other Forms that can be used to achieve the working of Will upon the universe. Technology as an idea is very powerful: the Thig have tapped into a tremendous power in terms of their understanding of the symbolic role of technology in our civilization. With application of various Hermetic principles of symbolism and language, a tool originally made to be a simple electronic device can be an effective focus for one's Will. My colleagues in House Thig have made this into an Art unto itself."
Samson continued to wash his head. Steven continued nonetheless.
" Mathematics builds upon language in one sense, and underlies it in another sense. Mathematics builds upon language since humans could not utilize any sort of organized thought about how universal laws operate until they could express sentiments more complex than `feed me'. At the same time, mathematics underlies language, as language follows a certain set of regular rules that is based on, and gives form to, mathematics."
" You are totally insano," was the erudite assessment of Samson as he pulled his head out of the waterfall, the water falling off his body as quickly as it arrived on its surface. "I think drugs have melted your brain."
Steven walked back over to the edge of the ledge, running his hands through the cool waters of the waterfall. "The imaginary guy wearing the Spandex mask is calling me crazy. Duly noted, Samson."
He looked out through the water, into the distant green forest his mindscape created. "From mathematics, we can determine rules that underly reality. These rules allow us to find patterns. As it was said in `Pi', mathematics is the language of nature. If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns will emerge. These patterns repeat, and someone who is attentive to these patterns can exploit them. Mundane people do this every day in some capacity or another."
" A magus, however, can use his Will to alter the Form of mathematical events, allowing for the probability of events to be altered. With enough knowledge of and insight into how various "random" events operate, an Awakened mage can turn Fortune to his favor through various methods of focus: language, mathematical calculations and so on."
" All aspects of reality can be controlled through similar means, using symbols and language in one incarnation or another to act as a Form into which Will can be focused. The flow of time, the Ars Essentae..."
Samson snorted, spitting down at Steven's feet. His beady eyes locked onto Steven's, nostrils flaring like a deranged Clydesdale's. "For all your imagined wisdom, you are nothing else than a spoiled boy. Until you do more than act like a little drugged-up kid, I will not let you easily make the booms with your pointy-hatted friends."
Then, as Samson was wont to do, he lept off into the waterfall, assumedly to go wrestle an alligator or drink warm beer.
Sneering coldly as Samson departed, Steven walked back to his spot on his ledge, entered the lotus position again, and attempted to return to his previous meditation. His Valium buzz was starting to wear off, however, and the warm, peaceful feeling he had earlier had been eroded by Samson's confrontation (as was his usual intent).
" One day, you little bastard," he muttered to himself, "one day ... I'll blast you in half, and then you'll respect my Will ..."

FOCI
Entropy - Statistics, probability, mathematics.
Mind - Language, psychology, symbolism, the occasional specialized apparatus.
Forces - Specialized apparatus.
Time - Psychological principles (sense of correct social timing, et al), specialized apparatus.

AVATAR
Steven's Avatar manifests as Samson, AKA "Santos" the world-famous Mexican wrestler. In some respects, he still acts as an embodiment of the "man of masks" principle -- but rather than being a traditional Fool, Samson finds himself in the role of using Steven's subconscious knowledge of the fundamental flaws to try to make him become the truly self-actualized magus he could be, rather than the drugged-up malcontent he is.
Samson embodies everything Steven dislikes in himself: irrationality, inarticulateness, futile aggression, the "ape" in every man. In one sense, this becomes a subconscious manifestation of antinomian praxis -- Steven's Avatar forces him to confront elements of himself that he despises, yet are a part of himself no matter how much he tries to deny it.
Ultimately, Steven will be unable to advance much further until he confronts his psychological hang-ups: his use of drugs to make himself feel happy and socially accepted, and his conscious belief that the only reason he has any sort of talent is through the use of chemical enhancement. Samson is trying to force Steven to deal with these discordant thoughts by making it more difficult for him to learn Forces, which is a major social flaw among Hermetic mages.
If Steven eventually gets his drug habit under control, or at least comes to the conclusion that he does not *need* the drugs to succeed, Samson will probably become more congenial to him and take on more of a traditional Fool role -- continuing to question him, make demands of him, and generally behave as a fairly normal, belligerant Pattern Avatar.

MENTOR
Dr. Maximillian Ravenhurst is a member in good standing of House Ex Miscellanea, as far as that particular House has any political weight within the Order of Hermes. Affiliated with what was House Verditius, Ravenhurst spent much of his early career as a lab assistant for his own Mentor, Kerry Heracleitus, in a Horizon Realm linked to the Shade Realm of Matter.
Ravenhurst became a fairly proficient alchemist, though he didn't Awaken until a lab accident killed his Mentor, grievously wounded him and caused the destruction of much of the laboratory. He Awakened from the shock of the event, his innate spiritual strength allowing him to survive his wounds and flag down a passing Ethership to get a ride back to the nearest Hermetic chantry.
After completing his training, Ravenhurst worked under several Masters to gain further knowledge and increase his mystic abilities. During one stint as a research associate under a Bonsagius alchemist, he discovered a love of the history of Earth -- particularly, its shadow history -- that led to him becoming a notable scholar within the Order.
Ravenhurst ultimately created a small Horizon Realm by gaining control of a middling-sized Node in Michigan, where he developed various alchemical creations in an effort to address some of the persistent ills facing mages in the modern world, particularly in dealing with wounds caused by Scourging. However, recent cosmological conditions forced Ravenhurst to abandon his realm and return to Earth on a full-time basis.
He spends the majority of his time teaching history at Michigan State University, though he is moderately active in local Hermetic politics due to his wealth of knowledge (particularly his command of alchemical theory and practice). Occasionally, he finds the time to try to mentor a promising student to the Hermetic order, as he did with Steven.
However, as Steven has left his tutilage and has fallen in with a chantry that is not particularly beloved by the Order of Hermes, the amount of assistance Ravenhurst can offer him is somewhat limited. He still wants to see Steven do well, even though he disagrees with how he has lived his life to the present.
STATS

FREEBIE POINT EXPENDITURES
Base Freebies 15 freebies
Sphere Inept (+5) 20 freebies
* Forces
Addiction (+2) 22 freebies
* Caffeine and Nicotine when he's working
* Reefer and Valium (among other prescription depressants) when he's not
Arete 3 (-8) 14 freebies
Influence 2 (-2) 12 freebies
Mentor 2 (-2) 10 freebies
Resources 2 (-2) 8 freebie
Abil. Aptitude (-1) 7 freebies
* Expression
Confidence (-2) 5 freebies
Perfect Liar (-3) 2 freebies
Enigmas 1 (-2) 0 freebie